Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [106]
Not until after he left the White House would he reveal, confidentially, that in late 1902 “the United States was on the verge of war with Germany.” Even then, his allusions to “the Venezuela business” were to be cryptic and contradictory, enough for a generation of historians to call him a liar. Seven decades had to pass before cohering bits of evidence suggested that the basic facts of the story were accurate, and that Roosevelt had remained silent about it in order to spare the dignity of an emperor.
The full extent of the crisis would have to be inferred circumstantially, from an extraordinary void in the archives of three nations—deletion after deletion hinting at some vanished enormity, a painted-out battle of Titans visible in pentimento through layers of pale wash.
ROOSEVELT HAD SEEN the crisis coming for eleven months. It involved a familiar situation: failure by a Latin American republic to repay European loans. Venezuela, bled white by civil war and corruption, owed some sixty-two million bolivars to an impatient consortium headed by Great Britain and Germany. These powers, acting in unlikely alliance, were now proposing to blockade Venezuela with a multinational armada until Caracas paid up. Both nations had scrupulously assured the United States that they were interested in debt collection only, and had no desire to establish footholds in the Western Hemisphere.
The President sympathized with their frustration. Ever the stern moralist, he blamed Cipriano Castro, caudillo of Venezuela, for ignoring honorable obligations. The fact that Castro was only five feet tall, and simian in appearance, confirmed his general prejudice against Latin Americans as political primates, low in the pantheon of nations. To evolve, they must be taught responsible behavior. Or as he robustly advised a contemporary houseguest, the German diplomat Speck von Sternburg: “If any South American country misbehaves toward any European country, let the European country spank it.”
Baron von Sternburg, about to return to Berlin, was a charter member of the secret du roi. British-born and-educated, married to a pretty blonde from Kentucky, he had known Roosevelt since 1889. He understood that uninhibited private language did not necessarily translate into policy. However, this was no longer the young Civil Service Commissioner blustering away at the Cosmos Club. This was the President of the United States, dominating a new, austere White House that gave off a chilly radiance of power.
When Roosevelt condoned the “spanking” of New World republics, then, one had to remember a significant qualifier in his First Annual Message: “provided that punishment does not take the form of acquisition of territory by any non-American power.”
Current Anglo-German assurances of benign intent suggested that this qualifier was being heeded. Roosevelt believed, at least, what Britain said. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty amounted to a guarantee that King Edward’s government had no designs on the Western Hemisphere. But a secret memorandum from Rear Admiral Henry Clay Taylor, Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, warned that Germany was otherwise inclined. Taylor wrote that the Kaiser’s navy would bombard Venezuela within weeks if President Castro resisted the blockade. She would then “certainly demand indemnity for her expenses.” But Castro had no money. Thus, in logical steps:
§Venezuela … could offer nothing but territory, or mortgage her revenue in such a way as to place herself in complete political dependence on Germany.
§The United States could not allow either of these, and yet Germany’s right to indemnity would be incontestable.
§The only courses open to the United States [would then be] payment of the indemnity, taking such security as she can from Venezuela, or war.
“The first method,” Taylor concluded, “is cheapest, the second most probable.”
His argument had crude force. Roosevelt was saddened by the whole situation. “I have a hearty and genuine liking for the